


As If

by yet_intrepid



Series: Hurt/Comfort December [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Neglect, Pneumonia, Sick Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 17:31:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2859101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's cough has been around for two weeks now, and it’s not getting better. Actually, it’s getting worse. Hurts like hell, brings stuff up. Makes teachers look at him. One of them even asked when he was going to the doctor.</p>
<p>As if.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As If

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt twelve: severe illness.
> 
> I've had pneumonia three times (with varying degrees of severity), so that's why it ended up in this fic.

At first, Sam tells himself it’s not that bad.

Dad and Dean are after a couple of wendigos about thirty miles out of town. They’ve gotten past the research into tracking, and you’ve gotta be quiet for that. Can’t cough and sniffle all the time. So Sam figures it’s a good thing. He doesn’t want to hunt wendigos. He wants to go to school, and coughing at school won’t get you killed.

It’s just that the cough’s been around for two weeks now, and it’s not getting better. Actually, it’s getting worse. Hurts like hell, brings stuff up. Makes teachers look at him. One of them even asked when he was going to the doctor.

As if.

He gets home from school all hunched in on himself and starts peeling off layers so he can get in the shower. Dad’s jean jacket. His hoodie. Three shirts. He’s sweating under them but he’s cold, so cold. He’s never warm lately and they’re only in Virginia.

When he bends down to get his shoes off, the cough hits.

It rattles in his chest, pounds against his ribs. Sam struggles for breath through his stuffed-up nose. And there’s pain, too, deep in his bones. He sits down on the floor and presses a hand to his sternum. It’s sore in a way he could never have imagined.

For a minute he just breathes. Feels it catch, knows he’s got to cough some more to get out all this junk in his lungs. Then he drags himself up and gets into the bathroom. Coughing junk up is easier after he spends a while breathing in steam.

Maybe it is that bad, he thinks. Maybe he does need to go to the doctor. Get some antibiotics, make sure this isn’t pneumonia or some shit. But he can’t ask Dad about something like that, especially not in the middle of a hunt. He’d have to sneak the money from the emergency fund. Walk over there. Deal with whatever happens if he gets caught. And he just doesn’t have the energy for a fight today.

So instead he starts the shower and ducks in, hoping it’ll warm up fast. It doesn’t. He starts shivering, which is stupid; he knows how to deal with a cold shower. Sucky motels and Dad’s survival training made sure of that.

But now he’s shaking, cold and wet and coughing again with his hair dripping in his face. Sam squeezes his eyes shut. He’s not asking to be pampered. He’s not even asking for a doctor visit. He just wants a shower, a normal warm shower.

He waits it out five minutes, maybe more, before a really bad cough hits and he gives up, spinning the dial back to off and grabbing for his towel. As he hurries back into his clothes, he hears the door open. Crap. There shouldn’t be anyone coming in; Dad said they’d be out hunting all day. He should probably swing out there with a knife just in case it’s not the manager.

But he’s too tired to move fast, exhaustion weighing down his limbs. By the time he’s found even a folding knife in his pocket, he hears voices. Dean. Dad.

Sam sighs, pulling open the bathroom door. He’s still shivering hard.

“Hey squirt,” says Dean. “Back from school?”

“Yeah,” says Sam. He leans on the doorframe because standing is getting hard. “What’s up? Thought you guys were gonna be out all day.”

“It’s raining.” Dean drops a duffel bag on the floor. Sam isn’t sure why that should explain it. Dad drags them out in the rain all the time.

Dad looks up from his computer, catches a glimpse of Sam’s confusion. “Come on, Sam. How do you kill a wendigo?”

“Fire,” Sam says. Then he puts it together through the fog in his head. “Oh.”

“Wow,” says Dean. “What’s gotten into you?” He comes over to slap Sam on the shoulder and Sam tries to stay steady but it still makes him sway. Dean squints. “Uh,” he starts, but Sam shakes his head fast. Looks over at Dad.

Dean squints at him some more. Bites his lip. Then he starts wandering around the room, looking at stuff. Sam sits on the bed and tries not to cough.

“Hey Dad,” says Dean.

Dad doesn’t look up. “Yeah?”

“Me and Sam are gonna make a grocery run.”

Dad holds out the keys. “Okay.”

Dean beckons to Sam, _come on_ , and Sam reaches for as many jackets as he can find. He doesn’t want to be out in the rain but he doesn’t want to sit around with Dad either. All he’d have to do to get told he shouldn’t complain because people are dying is ask if there’s another blanket or something.

He follows Dean out to the car and climbs in shotgun. Dean cranks up the heat up, pulls out of the parking lot, and says, “Spill.”

“What?” says Sam.

“What, he says,” Dean mocks. “Dude, I’ve got eyes. Something’s going on. Cough it up.”

Sam almost laughs at that but stops short thinking how much it would hurt. “I’m sick,” he says. “Stupid cough won’t clear up and now I’ve got all this junk in my lungs. Maybe a fever. I can’t think straight; I don’t know.”

Dean hits the steering wheel. “Damn it, Sam,” he says. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

_As if you could have done anything,_  Sam thinks, but he says, “You haven’t been here. It’s only gotten bad the past few days and you’ve been out with Dad all the time. Didn’t—didn’t want to tell him.”

The last word wheezes and Sam knows he’s about to cough. He does, hunching over himself and hacking. Dean actually pulls over on the side of the road to put a hand on his back.

“Fuck this,” Dean says, when Sam straightens up. “There’s a walk-in clinic across town. We’re going.”

“It won’t be free,” Sam protests.

“Fuck that,” Dean says. “I’ve got a card.”

“But Dad—” Sam starts.

“I’ll deal with him,” Dean says, but he might as well be saying _fuck Dad too_. He pulls back onto the road, blasting the heat and speeding towards the clinic.

Sam feels warm for the first time in weeks.


End file.
